Journal: Flowers, Birds, Cats... and Happy Mother's Day!

Last Tuesday morning Victoria and her two little girls, Carolyn, 3, and Violet, 2, came out to gather some hostas, Autumn Joy sedum, and a few irises.  She went home with a whole lot of flowers to plant. 😊🌺🌷🌼 

She brought along her AeroPress coffee maker and made me a scrumptious cup of coffee when we were through with the gardening.  She added a dropperful of hazelnut coffee syrup flavoring and several dollops of oat cream. Yummy.

It was chilly that morning, and we all had on sweaters or coats and ear warmers.  The little girls’ hands got cold, so I ran in the house and grabbed some very small gloves I happened to have – but you know, even extra-small ladies’ gloves look really huge on 2- and 3-year-olds' dainty little hands!  So I dashed back in and snatched a couple pairs of socks.  You should’ve heard them laugh when I put socks on those cold little hands. 😆

The huge collection of flowers around my house cost practically nothing, because I got them from friends and neighbors who were clearing out their gardens, and I’ve divided and transplanted for many years now.  So I’m pleased when my girls take some of the abundance to their houses to plant.

Later, after a bath and a shampoo, a blow-dry and a quick curl, I trotted upstairs to my office to resume scanning photos.

I took Loren some food a little before 4:00.  The main avenue to the street in front of his house is being repaved, so I had to come to his house from the north, where construction crews have put in a temporary road of white rock.  Loren was highly concerned over whether I’d be able to find my way to his house, and offered to come meet me and then lead me there, whereupon I informed him that one of us in that scenario would doubtless turn into Andy Capp and land in the canal.  He laughed at that – and quit worrying about it.

I gathered up another Jeepload of stuff from Loren’s house.  I’ve been doing this almost every day for three weeks now, and there are definite signs of improvement. 

One odd thing:  right in the living/sitting room area of the lower level, smack-dab in front of the beautiful brick fireplace, sits his gigantic U&I garbage can (we wondered why he never uses it – he just carries a garbage bag out to the street once a week).  He evidently was using the can for ashes?  I’m certainly glad he didn’t try using his fireplace last winter – he probably recalled that the smoke bothered Norma, and since he thinks she’s still around, he thought he’d better not use it.  His cutting and splitting of wood had been worrying me for several years.

A giant U&I trashcan in the middle of one’s living room/sitting room is not beautiful.  🙄🤨  I didn’t look in it to see if it was full of ashes... or guppies... or piranha... or raccoons... or if it was too heavy for me to move.  I would’ve had to move his Jeep Wrangler out of the garage in order to get the can out.  (The lower level opens into the garage.)

There were plenty of other things to do, so I decided to leave the job for Larry; he comes with me to Loren’s house on Sunday afternoons.

I took a lot of things to the Goodwill after sorting through them... and kept a bunch of gift bags that Janice had stored in a bin.  I’ve worked through many of Norma’s things and am down to Janice’s now.

Judging by SpotTrace, it would appear Loren got mixed up on his way to church Wednesday night.  He left in plenty of time (7:06).  It looks like first he took the bypass all the way out to Cornhusker Public Power, about halfway between our house and town (7:18), then came back east to town, traveled down Howard Boulevard, a main thoroughfare that is about half a block from the church – but he evidently missed the street that leads to the church.  (SpotTrace doesn’t show all the routes taken, though.)  It appears that he then made an about-face (7:28), and then wound up driving nearly all the way out to our house seven miles west of town (7:39).  SpotTrace showed that he was almost back to the bypass by 7:49, and the game cam shows him pulling into his driveway at 8:01 p.m.

Siggghhhhh...  I thought maybe I would ask Loren about this the next day, just to see what he might say.  If it frightened or upset him, perhaps he would remember, and I might learn something...

That night, the ladies on my online quilting group were discussing quilt colors – in particular, the colors they least liked.  This reminded me of something that happened when I was 9 years old.

My sister-in-law Janice, who was 17 years older than me, one day shortly before Easter asked, “What is your favorite color?”

“Purple,” I answered readily, then added something I must’ve read in a fashion magazine somewhere, “But I can’t wear it; it clashes with my skin tone.”

I was quite proud of my knowledgeability on the matter.

But I wondered why Janice had such a funny look on her face... and found out the very next day.

She had made me a lovely gabardine cape for Easter, which was in late March that year (1970).  The cape was in a very pretty shade of dusky violet, coordinating perfectly with my Easter dresses.

You should’ve heard me trying desperately to back-peddle:  “I didn’t mean this particular hue!  This one looks really nice with my skin tone.”

I wore it a lot, the better to convince my sister-in-law I loved it (which I in fact did).

Thursday morning, I received a beautiful bracelet from Keith and Korrine.  It has a slider, so I can perfectly adjust it.  I wear bracelets a lot, but most are too large for me.

I filled the bird feeders but didn’t work in the yard, as it was cold and rainy that morning.  By afternoon, it was a beautiful day, but I was all squeaky clean, had lots to do, and... I need me a clone!  

Okay.  O.n.e...t.h.i.n.g...a.t...a...t.i.m.e.  First, I washed dishes.  Then I scanned photos... called Loren... and took Loren some food.  That day, it was Philly steak, fire-roasted vegetables and potatoes with country gravy, peaches, sliced beets, fresh-squeezed apple cider, and blueberry yogurt.  I arranged the food on the table, got him some silverware – and broke my ‘rule’ about not asking him about something from the previous day.  

“Did you have trouble finding the church last night?” I asked.

He started by saying yes, he hadn’t been able to remember where it was – and then he stopped midstream and changed course.  Turns out, it was because Norma had ‘her girls’ with her (that almost always means her granddaughters), and ----- here he made gestures with his fists bumping into each other.  He always has punctuated his speech with lots of gesturing, but now it has increased, and it’s partly because he can’t think how to describe things, or come up with the words he wants.

“What happened?” I asked.

He informed me that when Norma ‘brings those girls along’, they often make remarks and pretend they’re kidding, but they’re not.  So they all got into a fuss, and somehow that kept him from getting to church.

I think I’ll go back to my ‘rule’ about never bringing up such things later.

I gathered up dishes from the day before (he always washes dishes immediately after he uses them) and told him I was going downstairs to ‘do some cleaning’.  (That sounds better than saying, ‘To haul all of Norma’s, Janice’s, and your paraphernalia out of the house’, right?)

The basement is looking considerably better, but there’s still a lot of stuff.  If I fill the back of the Jeep every time I go there, surely I’ll get it cleared out someday, right??  Or does it multiply when I leave?

I took the load home... sorted it... took the majority to the Goodwill... and then got back to photo scanning.  The faster I scan, the sooner I can get back to sewing and quilting!

I did use my sewing machine one day last week – but only to mend another pair of Larry’s jeans.

Here’s Dorcas at age 2, all ready for church.  

Below is Victoria, age 1, on the wooden rocking horse.

It was sunny and pretty (though chilly) Friday morning, so I worked outside in the flower gardens for a couple of hours.

Once clean and coiffed again, I ate breakfast (it was actually lunchtime by then, but, like I said, I ate breakfast) – a fat slice of fresh-baked bread, toasted, with peanut butter and honey on it.  Then I went upstairs and scanned more photos.

That evening, Loren called, wondering what to do with a letter he’d gotten in the mail for Norma – and she wasn’t home, and he was worried, because she’s usually home long before then.  The letter was to ‘Norma Fricke’ (her name before marrying Loren), at Loren’s address.  Evidently the address had not rung the post office’s ‘reroute’ bell, on account of the ‘Norma Fricke’.

“Is it an ad, or a personal letter?” I asked. 

“Oh, it’s not an ad,” he told me.  “It’s personal, and it might be a child’s writing.”

He guessed at the pronunciation of a name.

I told him he could open the letter. 

He didn’t agree, and was somewhat aghast that I would recommend such a thing.  “We are not to open other people’s mail!”

“Since Norma has passed away,” I explained, “you can open the letter.”

He said no, she has not passed away.

“The ‘Norma’ that letter is written to passed away June 17, 2020,” I told him.

If I’m adamant enough, he stops arguing. 

He opened the letter.

After carefully reading me the entire address of both sender and receiver, he finally got to the body of the letter.  It takes him considerably longer to read than it used to.  The note started out, “I know you believe in prayer, and I want to thank you for praying ...” and then on and on about the ‘fervent prayer of a righteous man’, and blah blah blah... until at the end, it said, “If you want more information on prayer, contact me at [phone number] or www.jw.org.” 

Ah-ha.  Just as I thought. 

I informed Loren, “That’s an ad from Jehovah’s Witness.  They’ve been unable to do their usual door-to-door proselytizing this past year on account of Covid-19, so they’ve been sending mail.”

I think I convinced him that he could put it into the garbage.  Maybe.

Colorado, January 2004

When he asked if I knew where Norma was, I told him, as I always do when he point-blank asks me, “She passed away last year.”

He lately gets loud and talks faster when he doesn’t want me to say that.  “I know that,” he said, then added, “This is Kenny’s...” after a lengthy pause, he finally said, “mother.”  Then, “And she’s Larry’s mother, too.”

Again I told him she had passed away, and gave him the date.

“Well, this is the one who calls herself Larry’s mother—” he said, and then, “But I don’t think Larry agrees with her.”

“No,” I agreed. 

I generally end these discussions by telling him that I really don’t know the person he’s talking about.

Then he asked, “I’ve been wondering, can you tell me how Daddy and Mama are doing?”

That’s the first time he has thought Daddy was still alive.

I told him as matter-of-factly as I could, “Daddy passed away September 14, 1992; Mama passed away December 12, 2003.”  I’m stating statistics, nothing more.

He made an amazed noise.

I added, “Daddy has been gone for 28 ½ years; Mama for 17 ½ years.”

He started to argue that Daddy couldn’t have been gone that long.  I repeated the date, and said that was indeed over 28 ½ years ago, as this is 2021.

So then he said, “I didn’t know!  Nobody told me!!!”

Now, I let a lot of these things go – until he starts getting all bent out of shape because ‘nobody told him’.  Then I put that remark to rest – because, after all, if he goes on thinking nobody told him, he will continue to be upset.  “You knew at the time,” I told him; “you were there, and attended both their funerals.”

He abruptly changed his tune, and said, “I mean, I had forgotten.”

He found a pen and carefully wrote down the dates, saying, “Now when I want to know, I can just read this; that’ll help me.”

He paused, then said, “It’s really terrible when you forget things like your own parents passing away.  That’s something everyone always wants to be able to remember.”

I felt quite sorry for him.

Victoria, Easter Sunday, April 11, 2004

Then he said, “I’ve been thinking, and I believe I’m going to (I thought he was going to say, ‘go on a little vacation’, eeeek, but he said –) move back home again.”

I asked, “Back home?”

“Yes,” he said, “to Columbus.”

I told him, “You are home in Columbus.”

So then he started laughing, and said, “Oh!  That’s right!  I forget, when I’m looking out my window toward town, that that’s Columbus down there!”

He laughed a little more, and then said, “I guess I’ll just stay right where I am!”

At least he still has a sense of humor and is usually in good spirits; we are thankful for that.

Here’s one of the things I found in Loren’s lower level during my cleaning and sorting – a book called Daddy’s Ties, by Shirley Botsford.  I decided to keep it.  But don’t expect me to pop out in that dress anytime soon (though the author got an award for it).  🤣 

My father, being a minister and a conservative dresser, had a whole lot of very nice ties – from narrow to wide and back to narrow again.  He kept them through the years, as the styles changed from one width to the other.  My mother gave the whole works to me when he passed away.  I donated the really wide ones to the Salvation Army (because I’m such a generous soul), kept the narrow and medium-wide ones for our two older boys, and the really skinny ones for our two younger boys, sometimes cutting the tail ends off so they weren’t too long, and sometimes making them into little bow ties.  We were fortunate to get that pile of ties right when all but the widest of the wide were in vogue.

Hannah, along with Joanna, Nathanael, and Levi, came visiting that evening, bearing Mother's Day gifts.  They gave me a beautiful pair of leather sandals that fit perfectly and are ever so comfortable, and a painting of a hummingbird and foxglove on canvas, painted so well it looks like a photograph.  There are tiny fiber optic lights that show through the picture in wee pinpoints, and they change color. 

They also gave me a handmade candle in raspberry vanilla by Wild Hen Crafts – a vendor Hannah knows from selling her Lilla Rose hair accessories at the same events.

Hannah made me a corsage with silk flowers, which I wore to church yesterday. 

While they were here, I spent some of the time prying the wires farther apart on the mesh Nyjer-seed feeder with the pretty copper lid, in order to make bigger holes, as the finches can’t get seed out of it.  I hope I didn’t wait too long to do it, leaving the feeder out there until the birds have given up on it.

Saturday, Victoria brought me a new teapot – chosen by Kurt – from the Pioneer Woman collection.  This, because when she tried using my teapot to boil water last Tuesday morning, she noticed that it had a metallic smell to it.  She used a pan instead.

She also gave me a picture of Carolyn and Violet in a pretty card with a pop-up hummingbird inside.

When I stopped scanning pictures that night, I had 17,673 photos scanned, and was partway through the 60^th album.  66 albums to go.

We picked Loren up and took him to church Sunday morning.  He hadn’t gone anywhere since his failed attempt to get to church Wednesday night.  He seemed glad, maybe even relieved, that we offered.

We took him some dinner at 1:30 – ancient-grain-encrusted cod, corn, sweet potatoes, Mexican jello, applesauce, and grape juice.  While I put the food on the table, Larry got the big U&I trash can out of the downstairs area.  It was empty.  I suspect that once things get in the wrong places, all they have to do is stay there for a while, and they seem plumb normal!  😏

Loren said he didn’t need us to come and get him for church that night; he wanted to drive there himself.

Sunday afternoon, Lydia emailed a picture of herself and the children (Jacob, Jonathan, Ian, and Malinda), wishing me a Happy Mother’s Day.

At 5:30 p.m., Larry called Loren to make sure he remembered what time the church service started.  He’d just woken from a nap, and was hurriedly getting ready.  He asked for instructions to get to church past all the road construction, so Larry tried to explain it to him, but didn’t know all the street names.  By the time the conversation was over, I feared Loren might wind up in College Station, Texas!  We reminded him to take his cellphone, and hoped for the best.  He sometimes thinks he cannot take the phone with him when he goes to church, because he doesn’t want it to ring during the service.  It does not occur to him that he can just leave it in his Jeep.

Before we left home, Larry saw a squirrel at one of the bird feeders.  He tapped on the window – and the squirrel clambered up to the top of the metal tower, gathered himself together, and took a wild flying leap to the maple tree, which was really too far, and the branch too little.   He barely, barely made it.  The branch dipped and bent low, while the squirrel skedaddled higher to safety.

We were glad to see Loren’s Jeep already in the parking lot when we got to church. 

As I read and study on Lewy Body dementia, I’ve learned that the symptoms wax and wane more than they do with other types of dementia, such as Alzheimer's.  And we definitely see that happening.  So... we do the best we can, and hope for as many good days as possible.

Along with my corsage that evening, I wore a vintage gold pin that Hester and Andrew gave me.  

They also gave me a card – with a pop-up hummingbird inside (not the same as the one Kurt and Victoria gave me).

After the service, Jeremy took Larry for a drive in their new Tesla, a battery-powered car.  It’s fast.

Jeremy told Larry of taking down a big tree (you’ll recall he has a tree-removal business), cutting the large trunk at about five feet above the ground.  The trunk was hollow.  Jeremy glanced in – and saw eyes looking back at him. 

It was an owl!  Furthermore, Jeremy had cut that trunk mere inches above the owl’s perch inside that tree.  It soon decided that the coast was clear, and took flight.  There were no eggs or young, fortunately; and there are plenty of other trees around for it to move into.

Jeremy and Lydia gave me a couple sets of kitchen towels and mitts, a tea towel Lydia machine-embroidered, a box of Ferraro Rochers, tubes of Carmex lip balm in watermelon flavor, and a Wood-wick candle with multiple fragrances.

This afternoon, I went outside to take pictures of the flora and fauna.  Tiger came, too – and then Jesse the neighbor dog (they should’ve called him Jesse James) spotted us and came galloping and barking down the hill.  Tiger is not inclined to run; but I’ve seen Jesse bowl over the other neighbors’ small dog and make him yip, so I shooed Tiger off down the drive.  He reluctantly waddled on, and then I turned and blocked Jesse from going past me. 

He didn’t hold it against me, and wagged his stump of a tail when I petted him; but he’s not an obedient dog and kept trying to go on down our driveway.  The neighbor lady, meanwhile, went on yelling at him.  When he returns to her, it’s never because she called him, but merely because he decided to.

I try to be friendly with her, but she’s not really friendly... not that I would call her unfriendly.  I think she’s quite nice, and probably just embarrassed over her mutt.  Australian shepherds are supposed to be smart, and he probably would be, if someone would’ve just taught him something.  🙄

Come to think of it, he’s doubtless behaving exactly like he’s been taught to behave.

Wouldn’t you know, Teensy came meowing out of the garage about that time, sashaying importantly down the sidewalk in front of the house.  Do these cats not fear for their lives?!

I went back to taking pictures.  There are only a few flowers blooming, but there’s a whole lot of potential out there, with buds everywhere.

However, that prolonged stretch of below-zero weather in February killed both the peach and the apricot trees, and one of the lilac bushes, too.  That peach tree produced the most scrumptious peaches we ever tasted, bar none.  Such weather events never kill the volunteer trees that pop up where one least wants them!  Bah, humbug.  At least the chokecherry is still alive and blooming like gangbusters.  It smells soooo good.

A box arrived from Dorcas this afternoon.  It contained a frame with a cord looped from one side to the other, with pictures of Trevor attached to the cord with small clothespins.  Such a clever idea.

I washed our laundry and Loren’s today; his is now in the Jeep ready to take back to him.

There are baby finches at the feeders again, along with Baltimore orioles.  I saw an oriole Saturday for the first time this year.  The red-winged blackbirds now come often to the feeders.  Today I heard – and then saw – white-crowned sparrows in the trees.

Last week, the game cam we have on the front of Loren’s house picked up raccoons trotting across his driveway, one after another.  Today there was a shot of a squirrel dashing pell-mell across the pavement, tail straight up, with a crow hot on its heels.  The crow’s wings were out and angled, giving it a bit of drag and tilt, so that it could extend its talons right at the tail end of that squirrel.  It was close enough that I’m sure it came up with some fur on those sharp claws.  The squirrel must’ve gotten too close to the crow’s nest.

I described this to Loren when I called him on the phone.  Laughing, he told me that he had seen just such a happening from his front window.  He keeps binoculars handy on a narrow table in front of the window, the better to watch the wildlife.  Bald eagles often land in the tall trees along the Loup Canal a few hundred feet to the east of his house, and deer sometimes stroll through the cornfield to the south.  He said there are about ten bunnies that live in his yard, too.

Look what this red-winged blackbird has learned to do, in order to get black-oil sunflower seeds from a feeder with too narrow of a tray for him to perch on:  he rests his behinder on the lid of the Nyjer seed feeder, stretches out one leg to grasp the sunflower seed feeder, and chows down happily.

Here’s a male English sparrow, all dapper in his summer attire.

Aaarrrggghhh!  We’ve just been issued a frost warning!  Well, at least most things are not in bloom yet.  It will only damage the leaves.  But still...  😑

,,,>^..^<,,,            Sarah Lynn            ,,,>^..^<,,,